being in chile is pretty crazy. it's oddly calm right now with just the sounds of helicopters circling and occasional horn honking. i didn't go out when the serious riots were happening mostly because i was alone in the house and it seemed like a bad idea to go out alone. but then we were watching the BBC world news and seeing pictures of what was happening 10 minutes from our house as if we were watching it from the states or something just like any other riot we see on the news. it felt ridiculous to be watching it all on tv so later after things had died down a lot, Evelyn and I walked around and ran into a bunch of things set on fire, lots of broken glass, a lot of people but no one being violent, and really scary pacos. here is a picture of a car on fire. what was the most interesting to me was that all of these fires were right outside of the fire station and about 15 firemen were standing outside watching it but not doing anything to put them out. only the extremely creepy carabinero metal plated war tanks were putting the fires out. I've never been more scared of the police than after being in chile. 20 at a time, they come out of these giant dark green trucks with chains on the front that clank ominously as they apporach and are in full riot gear with shields and clubs and olive green body suits. i know i've talked about them before but it's just so reminiscent of the dictatorship and one hundred percent citizens versus pacos with one side throwing rocks and screaming pacos culeados, asesinos, and other insults, and them retaliating with tear gas, potato guns, water sprays, and chases on horseback and motorcycle, I can't help distrusting them. After reaching the deserted wrecked plaza italia where a lot of stuff was happening during the day, we were about to go home when this guy came up to us and started speaking in a mixture of swedish an german inviting us to have a drink. i thought he knew evalyn since he was kind of speaking in swedish but really he was just a crazy asshole who made fun of us for being gringas and looking like idiots. he couldn't understand what we were doing out and why we weren't acting like all foreigners and running away. apparently he was hanging out with some police officers and they all started laughing at us for having blond hair and assumed that we had no idea that pinochet had died and were just idiot tourists out for a stroll or on drugs. after talking to him i found out that he is in the navy and he grew up in austria because his family had to leave the country for political reasons in 1972. ! how did i fucking end up having a drink with someone involved in the pinochet regime on the fucking day he died when there are millions of people in the streets with clearly similar ideologies as me celebrating his end? Then this guy told us about his grandfather who is retired military who if you give a beer or two will start telling you everything, who, what, when, where... talking about torture and disappearances as if it was a joke. I got really mad and yelled at him for insulting us and treating us like idiots but i don't even know what you say to someone who in his own country has to find foreigners to go to a bar with because he comes from a family who is and was involved in a military who murdered it's own citizens. so we left and now i'm home and it is really strange to be in a foreign country when something like this happens that I care a lot about but that is not my celebration or history and makes me remember how unchilean I am. it's exciting to see people who a lot of the time have been silent about what happened and try to forget that part of their history really rejoice and react to the fact that Pinochet is gone forever. It's frusterating that he was never tried or seriously held accountable for any of the deaths but i think a pretty big weight is lifted by the fact that he's not still living relatively peacefully just over the hill.